Formerly the winemaker at Belvedere, Erich Russell has since been developing his 40-acre Russian River vineyard. Rabbit Ridge operations now include new acreage in Paso Robles, California, as well as the ranch on West Dry Creek Road in Healdsburg.

Today he and winemaker Susie Selby rely on both estate-grown and purchased grapes.

The Rabbit Ridge lineup includes traditional wines, as well as what Russell refers to as “odd duck” wines such as marsanne, sangiovese, dolcetto, barbera and grenache.

The harvest comes when the fruit is ripe. This occurs at the end of summer for grapes. So the harvest is not currently under way in places where spring is arriving. Such places include South Africa and Australia.

Vitis vinifera is currently harvested in the Northern hemisphere. You have other options for obtaining wine grapes. I’ll talk about them in the upcoming guide to making your own wine starting in a week.

The Northern hemisphere shows grape harvest about two or three weeks earlier than usual. In Western Europe this is not because the summer was sunny and dry like in 2003. It was not. “In 2007, the whole season was early, right from the budding, because of the mild winter and spring” said Luca Vietti, winemaker at the Vietti winery, in the Piedmont (as reported by the Wine Spectator).

Harvest in the first half of August only concerns some white grapes. The regions where vintners began harvesting in the first half of August are:

Don’t believe mentions of a good vintage yet: it’s too early to address this fuzzy concept: wait until the wine is made! Still we already know that it will be very difficult for even expert winemakers to make good wine in the following parts: Texas, Bordeaux, Puglia and Sicily.